The CBO offers an analysis of the impact that the Iraq war will have on future deficit numbers based on different policy options we could pursue. The highlighted numbers in the chart [link] compare the impact on the deficit between a “stay the course” strategy and a phased withdrawal. The numbers make for a strong economic argument for redeployment.

A phased withdrawal would save $416 billion on the deficit over the next four years and $1.28 trillion over the next decade.

On the other hand, a strategy of “stay the course” will increase the deficit by $313 billion over the next four years and $1.3 trillion over the next decade.

That, in rounded numbers, is a difference of almost $2.6 trillion dollars over ten years.

The corporfascists (Ike's military-industrial complex) who hired George W. Bush to be Owwer Leedur have had dreams of constructing the means to impose a New World Order for a long time. In fact, as the reporter in this next article notes, even before Osama handed King George the Keys to World Dominion in the guise of cheap box cutters. After four United American airliners slammed into the history books, the New World Order had everything it needed - a malleable Congress, a gullible public - and a booming economy.

[T]he price tag for major weapons has garnered new attention from watchdog groups and government auditors, who contend that many of the arms already on the drawing board don't have much to do with ongoing combat or the war on terrorism. In fact, most of the weapon systems being designed, tested, or built had been in the Pentagon's pipeline long before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. The projections of what it will cost to acquire 'major weapons programs' currently in production or on the drawing board soared from $790 billion in September 2001 to $1.61 trillion in June 2006, according to the congressional analysis of Pentagon data.

But the huge increase in weapons costs is already placing enormous strain on the federal budget, according to government budget specialists, who predict major increases in defense spending for years to come so that the Pentagon can afford all the weapons it has on the books. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that between 2012 and 2024 the Pentagon budget will have to grow between 18 percent and 34 percent over what was appropriated this year.

In a quarterly report to Congress on weapons costs earlier this month,the Pentagon reported that of the $1.61 trillionit thinks it will need for big-ticket weapons,it has spent more than half so far -- about $909 billion.

The soaring cost estimates -- disclosed in a report for the Republican-led Senate Budget Committee -- have led to concerns that supporters of multibillion-dollar weapons programs in Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industry are using the conflicts and the war on terrorism to fulfill a wish-list of defense expenditures, whether they are needed or not for the war on terrorism.

They include new armored vehicles; two new fighter jets; an advanced Navy destroyer; a package of land, air , and space-based missile defense systems; and sophisticated electronic and intelligence systems such as a new satellite communications network.

The non-partisan GAO, along with Republican members of Congress, don't see a whole lot of hope that anything can be done about the takeover of our economy by the military industrial complex:

The Government Accountability Office, the government's nonpartisan audit bureau, warned of 'the risks of conducting business as usual', and concluded in a report in November that the major weapons programs are at 'high risk' for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

"Controlling the long-term costs of the Pentagon's arsenal are very nearly as complex as restraining the cost of government entitlements like Social Security and Medicare," the analysis said. The report, based on Defense Department data, concluded that the best way to keep defense spending in check in the coming years lies in 'controlling the cost of weaponry,' especially those programs that the Pentagon might not necessarily need.

The Congressional Republicans, maybe feeling a twang of conscience, admit the truth of their powerlessness:

The GOP committee report was blunt about the impact of rising weapons costs on the federal budget, and expressed little confidence that Congress has the political will to reign in spending on weapons that are not critical to the war effort.

Noting that 'every project has local employment implications',the report said 'weapon system politics'will make it extremely difficult to make cuts.

Overall, annual defense spending has increased by about 11 percent per year since 2001, to about $400 billion this year, not including hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress has set aside to pay for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Still, "only a portion of these increased costs are a result of the war on terror," said Winslow Wheeler, a former congressional budget specialist now at the nonprofit Center for Defense Information in Washington and the author of The Wastrels of Defense.

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